A mother in the UK has found a novel way to stop her children constantly begging for sweets.
Sarah Balsdon from Northumberland installed a vending machine in her home – and offered the kids pocket money in exchange for chores.
On The Hard Shoulder this evening, she said the idea is already bearing fruit.
“I was sick of telling them, ‘no, you can’t have it’ and them whinging about it and then saying, ‘you can have one,’ but they wanted more than one.
“They weren’t doing their school work and they wouldn’t help around the house and I thought, ‘well if I can make them do their chores and do their school work, then they can earn some money and they can get what they want.’
“They only have a set amount, so they can’t have too many and there are less arguments this way.”
She said the rules are the same for the adults as for her children – the kitchen has plenty of free healthy snacks on offer but everyone has to toil for their treats
“It just gets tedious when you are saying [no] all the time,” she said.
“If you take temptation out of the way, you don’t have to say it as much – I just feel like a broken record saying it over and over.
“They are like, ‘well, please mammy’ and it just goes on and on – but this way they need their money for the machine to work and to get their money they have to complete their school work and do their chores.”
Ms Balsdon said her children, aged two, five, eight and nine-years-old, didn’t like the idea at first but have been buying into it as time goes on.
“It is nothing too hard,” she said. “My youngest will take the milk bottles out for the milkman, my five-year-old will wipe the benches down and dust a bit; the girls will do the dishwasher, things like that so it is nothing huge.”
The machines can cost upwards of €550 to buy but Ms Balsdon picked hers up second hand for £100 (€112.50) online.
You can listen back to her chat with Ivan here:
